The Noetherian condition makes many results much easier to prove (or in fact a necesary condition!) especially if the ring over which the module is defined is Noetherian. Perhaps the single most important technical device is the following lemma:
Let M be a Noetherian module over a Noetherian ring R, then M is of finite presentation, i.e. there is an exact sequence:
R^m --> R^n --> M --> 0
in other words the module is given by a finite number of generators AND a finite number of relations.
Surprisingly, Artinian modules are much more specialised. They tend to occur when working locally at a prime ideal p (i.e. the module is killed by some power of p, often by starting with a module M and modding out p^n M giving a filtration and exact sequences
0--> p^(k +1) M --> p^k M --> p^k M / p^(k-1) M -> 0
where the latter is a vector space over R_p/pR_p ). The Artinian module is then a stepping stone for working over the completion of R_p at p,
It seems to me that such modules are a natural generalization of a finite dimensional linear space over a field. See, for instance, http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783540353157
The Noetherian condition makes many results much easier to prove (or in fact a necesary condition!) especially if the ring over which the module is defined is Noetherian. Perhaps the single most important technical device is the following lemma:
Let M be a Noetherian module over a Noetherian ring R, then M is of finite presentation, i.e. there is an exact sequence:
R^m --> R^n --> M --> 0
in other words the module is given by a finite number of generators AND a finite number of relations.
Surprisingly, Artinian modules are much more specialised. They tend to occur when working locally at a prime ideal p (i.e. the module is killed by some power of p, often by starting with a module M and modding out p^n M giving a filtration and exact sequences
0--> p^(k +1) M --> p^k M --> p^k M / p^(k-1) M -> 0
where the latter is a vector space over R_p/pR_p ). The Artinian module is then a stepping stone for working over the completion of R_p at p,
Consider the algebraic polynomials in a finite number of variables, which is a Noetherian ring. Then any ideal is represented by a finite number of polynomials (Hilbert basis theorem), although the dimension of this ring as a K-vector space is infinite.
For rings of differential polynomials, there are some similar results on radical differential ideals (Ritt-Raudenbusch theorem) : they are in a sense Noetherian.
I have no example for the importance of Artinian rings, I guess you should find something in the Number Theory.
The benefit of studying Artinian/Noetherian Modules (modules with chain conditions) which appears to me is connected with the decomposition of a module into a finite number of indecompsable submodules which is the first step towards analysing the structure of modules as well as classifying them. Such decomposition exists if a module satisfies either chain condition on submodules.
Every subspace of finite dimensional vector space is finite-dimensional and the dimension of a subspace is at most the dimension of the whole space. The naive analogue of this for modules and submodules is wrong: For example a submodule of a finitely generated module need not be finitely generated. Artinian/Noetherian methods may be use for solve this problems.